Tube Ban Doesn't Hold Water

February 17, 1999|BY JOE KOLLIN STAFF WRITER

Domenic Frasca wasn't trying to make waves when he floated on an inner tube in the swimming pool of his condo in Pine Island Ridge, near Davie.

But his efforts to ease a sore back have cost his neighbors at the Sabal Palm Condominium $4,480 -- and, perhaps more important, their right to swim with the foam flotation devices they call "noodles."

The battle began in 1996. Frasca, 46, a New York City teacher of handicapped students, had been using his tube every summer for seven years as a way to deal with chronic back pain.

Then, the condo association's board of directors banned the use of Frasca's 3-foot round tube, saying a resident had complained. Frasca protested, continued to use the tube and was fined $250 for violating the ban. The board also threatened to withhold approval of a lease for Frasca's winter tenant.

At the same time, the board allowed the condo's residents, most of them elderly, to use the 5-foot-long noodles.

That's when Frasca asked a state arbitrator to decide whether he was being treated unfairly.

"It is unreasonable to allow one group of swimmers to use noodles while disallowing floats," she wrote in her decision last summer.

La Plante rejected the board's argument that a tube takes up too much space in the pool and ordered the $250 fine refunded within 30 days. Frasca said he still hasn't received the money.

On Jan. 28, another arbitrator ordered the board to pay $1,480 to Frasca's attorney. The board has until Feb. 28 to pay the fee or appeal to Broward Circuit Court. The association also must pay its attorney her estimated $3,000 fee, bringing the total cost of the fight to $4,480.

After Frasca's victory, the condo board banned noodles from the pool, even though residents love them.

"I feel terrible that I'm responsible for my neighbors not being able to use their noodles. I really am," Frasca said on Tuesday. "I'm sorry it's costing them nearly $5,000. All I ever wanted was an apology and an admission that they did something wrong. But all they would say is, 'Rules are rules."'

Nonetheless, Frasca is happy that he won.

"They tried to be judge, jury and executioner, but I proved you can beat them," he said. "Everyone always told me, `Domenic, you can't win, it's impossible.' I showed you can."

Neither the association's attorney, Tamar Duffner Shendell, nor Sabal Palm condo board president Richard H. Newell could be reached for comment. But Newell did discuss the issue last year.

"We don't have a dictatorship," he said. "We happen to enforce our rules, which is one reason we have the nicest condo in Pine Island Ridge, and the reason people are so proud," he said.

"If we allowed one unit owner to bring a tube into the pool, we would have to allow others, and we wouldn't have room for anyone else. If we start deviating on the rules, we lose control."

Frasca said he isn't sure whether he will keep the apartment, which he bought 10 years ago and occupies each summer.

"My wife, Sherri, wants to stay, but I'm not comfortable there anymore," he said. "Everyone knows me in a negative way. They portray me as the bad guy.